March 2017 Plotting Post

[undergroundmods]

March 2017
Welcome to your March plotting post! You can make use of the information here to plot what your character will be doing in the next month. As spring approaches, we're going to see Circle Daybreak shaking up the status quo, with some interesting consequences for various factions. OOCly, there'll be a new How's My Driving post around the middle of the month. These are always useful to gather feedback, so make sure you look out for it!

In the meantime, check out the calendar for a quick summary of when things are happening. You can also check the game timeline to see what has happened in the game so far.

Factions
Last month, the new Mother of Witches, Samantha Okeke, made a bold statement in her opening address to the supernatural community. As London politics begins to realign itself to the various new players, new alliances are starting to emerge. The East End Pack has made a pact with Circle Daybreak to support them in return for the witches' support to help them combat the Islington Nest. In a clear sign of hostility towards the fae, Circle Daybreak's first move will be to attack Seelie/Unseelie territory with help from their allies.

Samantha's ambition doesn't stop there. This month, she will announce that her plans to create a centre of magical excellence and innovation are progressing, having selected a location (a building in Richmond) which is set to open soon.

More importantly, Circle Daybreak will submit a petition to the Night Council requesting that the definition of dark magic is changed to no longer include summoning magic. This means that Daybreak witches would be free to summon, recruit and use fae in their magic. After submitting the petition, Samantha will visit various Daybreak covens to make it clear that she does not consider summoning magic to be dark magic; in fact, she encourages it. As far as she is concerned, the rules have already changed and it's the Night Council that needs to catch up. This of course puts pressure on the Night Council witches to conform. In the end, the petition will succeed with Peter, Yasmine and Cooper voting for, while Sylvia and Nora vote against. The result will be announced by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, fae from both the Seelie and Unseelie Court will start to go missing from around mid-March. The numbers are small and may not be noticeable at first, but the timing with Circle Daybreak's new attitude towards summoning magic surely can't be a coincidence.

All of this poses a problem for the Redbright Institute, which will initially support action against the fae in the interests of promoting peace in the community. However, once Sylvia Redbright realises just how fundamentally the new Mother of Witches intends to change Circle Daybreak's relationship with the fae, she may be forced to rethink her position.

Finally, if the fae didn't have enough to contend with, the changing of the seasons also means a shift in power for the Seelie and Unseelie Court. March is the month of the spring equinox, when the Seelie finally drive out the Unseelie north of the river and declare that summer is on its way once again.

Territories
The status quo remains as it is for now which means that Circle Daybreak and Islington Nest are the joint top factions, with seven territories each. See the Territories page for more information.

If your faction would like to claim a new territory, please comment to the appropriate thread. Players will then have three days from the date and time of the initial claim to sign up for the conflict. Anyone can sign up, but please only volunteer your character if they are a member of a faction involved in the conflict or they have IC reasons to actively help out. Please do not volunteer if you won't be able to participate in the plot.

If the outcome of the conflict is not already guaranteed, I will then look at the sign-ups list to calculate which faction will emerge victorious. It is up to players to plan and play out the actual conflict itself. If you comment to claim a territory, then you should also take the lead in planning and organizing it.

Minions
The following lucky minions will be promoted this month:

Ringer | Meta Human, East End Pack | Level 1
‣ Previously a hunter, Ringer decided to put her skills to good use in helping the pack.

Elicia Darby | Meta Human, Hillingdon Clan | Level 1
‣ Loves coffee more than tea and claims she was disowned by her family for it; couch hops around Hillingdon and complains about money but never seems to be short of it when she really needs it.

Percy Brown | Human, Hillingdon Clan | Level 1
‣ Technically an aristocrat but his family was targeted by vampires and he fled, shirking the family name and eventually deciding to train himself as a hunter to take revenge.

Oliver Hampton | Human, Redbright Institute | Level 1
‣ Works for the Institute's IT department.

These minions will decide to leave town this month:

James Park | Werewolf, East End Pack | Level 2
‣ A rich frat boy who dropped out of university after being turned last year.

Thea Elliot | Shapeshifter, Hillingdon Clan | Level 2
‣ A graduate student at a local university. A panther shifter, she isn't overly fond of werewolves.

Daniel Daniels | Shapeshifter, Hillingdon Clan | Level 2
‣ Spends half his time as an eagle knocking everyone's stuff over. Somehow he's a really effective hunter despite this.

Nemed | Fae, Unseelie Court | Level 2
‣ A millennia-old warrior who's always going on about his lineage. No one cares.

And these less fortunate minions will sadly die this month:

Ban Sidhe | Human, Unseelie Court | Level 2
‣ Not a banshee. Not even a fae. They can't get rid of her.

Factions may decide how and when their minions die, leave town or receive a promotion. Feel free to work these developments into any of this month's plots.

Events

12th March – FULL MOON. Werewolves, it's that time of the month! Will you chain yourself up or spend the night in a cage? Roam wild in the London parks? Or perhaps find a witch to make you a wolfsbane potion. Whatever you choose, better be prepared.

13th March – SAMANTHA'S PETITION. The Night Council will officially receive the petition from Samantha Okeke, Mother of Witches, to change its definition of dark magic to no longer include summoning magic. They will debate the petition and announce that the motion has been passed by the end of the month. News about the petition being submitted is only circulated to members of Circle Daybreak, so other characters may not even be aware that it is happening until later on.

14th-31st March – THE CASE OF THE MISSING FAE. Starting from around the middle of the month, a few fae from both Courts will quietly disappear. Investigation of these disappearances will reveal one thing the missing fae have in common: they all make their primary home or business in the mortal realm rather than in the Other Realm. Most are minor fae with few powers (imps and such-like) but there are a couple of more significant disappearances:

• 16th March: Nemed, an ancient Unseelie warrior, will vanish from Crystal Palace Park where he had been enjoying visiting the model dinosaurs.
• 19th March: Mrs. Lotus, the Seelie proprietor of Pins and Needles, will disappear from her dress shop in the borough of Harrow.

17th March – ST PATRICK'S DAY. The patron saint of Ireland, celebrating St Patrick's Day is the best excuse you will ever have for dressing up in green, going on a pub crawl and getting absolutely wasted. Naturally, Londoners love it.

20th March – OSTARA (SPRING EQUINOX). The spring equinox represents the balance between summer and winter, and thus the Seelie and Unseelie Courts find themselves equally matched. As the sun rises, the Seelie will muster their forces to drive out the Unseelie north of the river. They will succeed and the balance of power in the Other Realm will be reversed – a sign that summer is on its way once again. This is also an important time for witches who are celebrating the renewal and rebirth of spring. It is traditional to plant seeds in one's garden and cast a spell for good luck. The changeover of seasons is also the perfect time for witches to summon fae from either Court, whose power is at an equal but manageable ebb.

20th March – MAGICAL INNOVATION CENTRE ANNOUNCED. Ostara is also when Samantha Okeke, the Mother of Witches, will announce that the location of her new Magical Innovation Centre has been chosen and is planned to open next month. Located in Teddington, Richmond, Samantha will make the announcement from outside the building to a select group of Circle Daybreak witches and journalists from Alternative Views News. She will also mention the petition to make summoning magic legal again, which will be reported by the supernatural media. If you didn't know that the petition was happening, this is when the news will officially get out. There will be no open post for this event as such, but a news report will be posted to the main community.

26th March – MOTHER'S DAY. You all want to send a card and flowers to Samantha, right? Right? Come on, guys, show some respect.

Plots
The following prompts are up for grabs this month:

1) There is a bounty on a rogue vampire. This vampire is physically only twelve years old and said to be "completely insane". Reward: £950
2) A man at Speaker's Corner has been preaching about evil lurking in London... including vampires and witches. Does he know something?
3) A director looking to save money on special effects approaches you to feature in his latest production.
4) A spell goes wrong, forcing you to stay within six feet of the last person you touched at all times. The effect lasts for three days.

About plots and events
• You may claim one plot prompt per month.
• You can also run your own plots based on the events listed above, or create your own.
• If you claim a plot, then you also volunteer to take the lead OOCly i.e. planning and organizing with other players, deciding on the outcome, setting a timeline etc.
• Once you have claimed a plot, you should introduce it ICly within the next month.
• Plots may not be entirely handwaved. You may handwave some of the plot, but you should play out at least part of it.
• Some plots will require NPCs as well as player characters to fill different roles. Please feel free to make up and play the NPCs yourselves.
• Plots are generally open-ended enough that you can make them big or small. It is up to the player who claims the plot to decide how they would like to handle it. You may want to do open sign-ups for your plot and specify whether there is a limit on how many characters can participate.
• Plots can also be self-contained or form part of an ongoing storyline. Again, it is your choice on how you would like to handle it.
• Please feel free to integrate plots and events or join plots up where appropriate. For example, if you claim a plot that involves a murder, why not choose an event during which the murder could happen? As long as the mod and other players are aware of your plans, I'm happy to accommodate.
• Do not ask the mod to explain what the plot is and what your character should do or discover. That is up to you. These plot ideas are just that, ideas, and it is up to you to run with them and decide how and why these events are happening, what your characters are going to do about it, and what the consequences will be.
• You may ask the mod questions pertaining to game mythology, to check that what you are planning to do makes sense within the game world.
• This list is not meant to be limiting in any way! Player plots are also very welcome.
• If you have an idea for a player plot, please feel free to comment here and see if there is any interest. Run it by the mod first if you're unsure of anything.

Comments

CIRCLE DAYBREAK VS SEELIE/UNSEELIE COURT: THE SEQUEL

[bellbound]

Okay, so here's what I'm thinking! Samantha is ordering this claim under the guise of promoting peace and security. Can't have those pesky fae disrupting the peace, right? She offered them a deal via Mogget and they refused, so they only have themselves to blame. Thus far, her message chimes with the previous Mother's approach, which is why Sylvia and the Redbright Institute will be supporting her.

Of course, she has an ulterior motive. Mogget and a couple of hunters/trackers from the Hillingdon Clan have been scoping out Bromley for the past few weeks, searching for fae hideouts, watching their movements and generally assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Samantha doesn't just want to drive out the fae, she wants to capture them. It's like catching Pokemon, except instead of Pokeballs she's got iron cages.

So the plan of attack is as follows:

Thursday 9th March: Nothing much, just a few witch and fae sentries appearing during the night to keep watch on key Seelie/Unseelie areas. Some preliminary salt circles will be created around various buildings to trap the fae inside. Both iron and silver will be used to strengthen the barrier.
Friday 10th March: Daybreak witches stationed around the borough will chant a spell to prevent fae from entering the mortal realm from the Other Realm. Fae can still create doors to return to the Other Realm, but they can't come back again. This spell will be temporary and will either wear off on Sunday if Daybreak win, or will fail almost immediately if they lose. After this, the Daybreak witches will make themselves known to the fae they have trapped and tell them to go back to the Other Realm. The fight begins! The aim is to banish rather than kill them, but they won't hesitate to take out a fae if they're under attack.
Saturday 11th March: At this point either things are going really well for Daybreak and they're banishing lots of fae back to the Other Realm, or it's going really badly and the fae are fighting back and even breaking out of the salt circles. Individual fae will also be targeted at this point. Kunstkammer being one example. There will be some witches with iron cages, ready to capture any fae that have refused to leave.
Sunday 12th March: The aftermath. Either victory and collecting up the caged fae that remain, or retreat which means most of the fae escape.

Mogget won't be doing much fighting himself (he's vulnerable to iron and silver too) but he will be around and keeping a sharp eye out for any fae that might attack or escape. He knows the area well and will also be leading the witches and their allies to their strategic targets.

That's my rough plan! Whatever happens, Samantha will use it as a pretext to begin her project to capture fae, hence them going missing later in the month. This is just an outline, I welcome any ideas for how you could support or oppose! For example, the werewolves supporting Daybreak could chase down any stray fae that aren't trapped in the circles. If you're opposing, you could disrupt some of the circles or rescue trapped fae! Or you could be trapped yourself and need rescuing.

[nightflowering]

H'okay! I am totes game for Lan's shop and Lan herself to be targeted, but I would like to roll for some measure of success/failure.

It's fine if she has to move, but I'd like to angle for some way to either to strike back in nasty ways at the witches coming for her or to preserve her stock. She's rather fond of all the beautiful bits and bobs she's gathered over the years.

I would rather not have her captured and caged, but if there's a cool payoff, I can be swayed.

[bellbound]

Sure! My suggestion would be that if Daybreak win, she's forced to leave, and if they lose she can stay put. Is that good with you?

For all the other details, I'm completely fine with you deciding what happens i.e. how bad it is if she loses, or how far she goes in terms of striking back at the witches if she wins. The only thing to bear in mind is that her level of vindictiveness would obviously have an impact on how members of Circle Daybreak feel about her and how dangerous an enemy she's considered to be.

Re: capturing/caging, I think there are three possibilities!

1) Immediate rescue, she's captured as part of the territory claim plot but either escapes or is rescued during the plot, no long-term consequences.
2) Short-term capture where she would be a prisoner for approximately a month before escaping or being rescued. This would tie into the missing fae plot which will go into April. I can give you more details if you're interested!
3) Long-term servitude, essentially what I proposed in the plotting post where I asked if any fae characters wanted to be captured. This could potentially last for several months and would involve the character switching allegiances to Circle Daybreak.

You don't have to have her captured or caged if you'd rather not of course, just laying out the possibilities! These three options are open to all other members of the Seelie/Unseelie Court too.

[outstandingbalance]

Like I said on plurk, I figure Natasha will be very unenthusiastic about her support, and she'll bring some of what she's gleaned to Sylvia in response to this. Mostly that comes down to info that Samantha's interested in witches using fae power.

I can either put up a catch all post and include it in that, or I could slip it into the claim log?

[bellbound]

Sure. It depends on the timing! If you want to talk to Sylvia before the claim takes place, it would make sense to put it in a catch all post. If you want to talk to her afterwards, it could go into the claim log or a post that takes place after the claim. Either is fine with me.

[outstandingbalance]

I'm still deciding where it would make more sense for that to go. Some of it depends where a thread with Eames ends up going. But! Let's say after the claim. She'd feel more inclined to chat when she has evidence beyond one conversation to point to.

[bellbound]

Works for me!

[ghoulaid]

ghoul is iffy on this push to begin with, but he will be pretty well-behaved until the 11th. as soon as the cages come out, an oh shit switch will be flipped and he'll start acting up a bit. so there are a couple things to play with here.

1) salt circles. whenever he can get away from a group and is (mostly) sure no one is watching, he'll try to smudge out salt circles. just a couple, because more would likely be too risky. if that's enough to set the fae inside free, great! if it's more complex than that, whatever, at least he maybe gets salt everywhere. fuck your salt, he hopes some of it blows in to somebody's eye. he's possibly not as sneaky as he thinks he is, though, so if someone wants to catch him doing this i would be ok with that even if it means his dumb ass could be in trouble later.

2) fighting! he'll def defend himself when needed, but he won't be working on an intent to kill. if he's alone and runs in to someone he recognizes he'll try to talk his way out of a fight altogether or run them out of the area before the rest of the group catches on. other than that, there will be too many eyes on him and he'll be flushing out whatever fae/their allies he finds like a good dog. if anybody wants to have an encounter, come at me bros. also thinking i can probably work ghoul's new ability in to this somehow. possibly by getting smacked by some weird spell crossfire or something, idk. maybe one day he'll learn to look both ways before crossing the street during witch-vs-fae magic battles.

3) kunstkammer. he likes lan, okok. at some point he'll be trying to get here to keep tabs on things. i know she's been dropped so if there's anything i should note, lmk??

i'm sure i will be tagging around all obnoxiously anyhow, but if anybody wants ghoul for something specific come hit me up.

[bellbound]

1) Would you be good with Mogget catching him? Katherine would find out and she wouldn't be happy with him, so he'd get the short end of her temper for disobeying orders.

3) Lan is an NPC now so it's pretty flexible! Since Daybreak lose, she won't be turfed out but she could be captured, which could possibly help motivate Ghoul or other characters to search for her and other fae that go missing.

[ghoulaid]

1) i am totally ok with that! i'm mean so i'm excited to see mad katherine. :)

3) also sounds good! that's def good motivation for him to start sniffing around once he's un-grounded or w/e.

[bellbound]

1) Excellent.

3) All right, let's have a think about that after the claim!

[injectablefame]

Party's going into this feeling very torn. Ultimately, he's loyal to his pack and he'll do his best to help push the Fae out, but he likes the Fae more than the witches, so he'll refuse to kill anything that isn't trying to kill him first and he'll have no part in capturing anyone. He might even help out a familiar face on the wrong side, though I don't know that he would help out a stranger. Of course, he's also easy to set off and likely to be less-than-sober in the fight, so he could easily be baited to get more lethal.

He's not in full sabotage mode, but he doesn't like what he's being asked to do, either. He's really not a fan of how divided the politics keep the different groups in London and he doesn't make a secret of that or the fact that it bothers him that werewolves are dismissed by so many of the other groups, which means mid-fight, he could easily be dumb enough to step up on his soapbox.

[bellbound]

If he steps on it near Mogget, I'm sure they could have a friendly word. :D

[injectablefame]

I think I shall write something up for this!

fae verdict: not fun

[falsify]

My brain has just not been With It for the last week or so, but better late than never right.

SO! My thoughts WRT Fae response are as follows:

Between Samantha's 'offer' and Finnick's... everything. Eames has kinda been on high alert and waiting for the witches to make a move. It's more organised than he was entirely prepared for, but they're not totally caught unawares.

The 9th is business as usual because nobody knows a damn thing is awry. Damn stealthy witches.

The 10th is obviously when they'll actually know the witches are there. Eames is going to call Jean-Claude to make good on that payment they discussed and probably catch a whole heap of shit for inviting vampires in. Eames will request they avoid werewolf casualties where possible, though he says nothing of witches. Not that he's making a point or anything.

Come the 11th it's probably just a mess. Fae are escaping from where they've been caged, salt circles aren't really circles anymore so much as a child's attempt to recreate Art Attack and there's a lot of angry fae. Well, a lot is probably overselling it, but there's Some. And they're mad. Bromley is not a good place to be if you're mortal right now.

Once the 12th rolls around, Eames will be focusing on regrouping and getting an idea of the current state of affairs. Mostly he's interested in figuring out who's dead vs who's missing and probably captured by witches. He may well start looking into finding out if it's possible to stop witches from doing magic in fae-held boroughs too.

Eames himself will be easy to find; he's fairly arrogant confident none of the witches have the means to banish or bind him and he's tough to kill so he's ready and willing to take out a lot of that bad mood he's been feeling on these witches.

[bellbound]

That all sounds good! It's enough of a mess that I'm imagining virtually all of the fae will escape, which will then trigger the disappearances later on in the month (think of it as Daybreak going into stealth mode...).